Robert Englan'ds STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE CGI with original cast voices!

Re: Robert Englan'ds STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE CGI with original cast voice

I Animated the entire thing in 3DS MAX.
Most of the Complaints here have been mentioned in the YouTube comments section and I have uploaded updates to show what changes are in the works. Body volume issues have been addressed by using dynamic cloth simulation for the shirts.

I used: 'Character Design Software' to help design a few of my 'Characters',,.. What's the problem with that? I've rarely seen anyone do more with these (base) characters than I have. Kirk is James base too (high-rez version)..
BTW - I used no-one's 'morph targets' on anything. I sat for weeks and months on end looking at reference material of their faces and slowly carving my best attempt of each character.

I finally got to see it now that I'm home.

I recognize a fair number of the models used. The bridge and phasers, possibly the communicators and tricorders look like the meshes available at Excalibur Productions. The engineering section and maybe aux' control by ALT1701. Chekov and Scott look like they were derived from the "James" mesh supplied with Poser since version 6. Uhura and Spock seem to be created with morphs by Mylochka (or variations thereof) applied to DAZ's Victoria 3 and Michael 3 respectively. I will admit that Kirk, McCoy and Sulu stump me. The alien may have been a substantially modified DAZ "Creeper", but I could well be flat out wrong.

The animation tools? I have no solid idea. I will say with confidence that neither Poser nor DAZ Studio could have created that volumetric "cloud" the ship encountered. Oh, I think the Enterprise may be Vektor's Constitution given we saw 8 impulse ports instead of the usual two.

While this is interesting there's a real misinterpretation of the material because audio processed to come over the intercoms or communicators in played over shots with the characters in them and vice versa, which is really distracting.

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''a real misinterpretation?''
Static shots of characters 'listening to intercoms' would probably prompt the opposite comment from many a fickle & unappreciative fan.

Re: Robert Englan'ds STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE CGI with original cast voice

I fear there has been some misintrepretation of intent.

I merely tried to guess what you may have employed to create the final product. If I was wrong in my guesses, then obviously my eye is not as keen as I thought. There's no "law" that forbids the use of pre-existing content unless that's a peronal philosophy you chose to impose upon yourself. If everything was from "scratch", well, all the more power to you. I just thought I recognized elements and I thought I'd try to guess what they might be.

I take it that YouTube commenters have been generally insulting? Sadly, that seems to be the state of things there. Some have taken the MST3K "riffing" philosophy to a very cruel degree. Someone can't even post a clip of a kitten producing a funny "meow" without some schmuck screaming "animal cruelty!" or similar idiocy. It's enough to make anyone suspicious of any feedback.

I merely tried to guess what you may have employed to create the final product. If I was wrong in my guesses, then obviously my eye is not as keen as I thought. There's no "law" that forbids the use of pre-existing content unless that's a peronal philosophy you chose to impose upon yourself. If everything was from "scratch", well, all the more power to you. I just thought I recognized elements and I thought I'd try to guess what they might be.

I take it that YouTube commenters have been generally insulting? Sadly, that seems to be the state of things there. Some have taken the MST3K "riffing" philosophy to a very cruel degree. Someone can't even post a clip of a kitten producing a funny "meow" without some schmuck screaming "animal cruelty!" or similar idiocy. It's enough to make anyone suspicious of any feedback.

Sincerely,

Bill

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Nice, I've never been happier to have been mistaken! I looked at other comments by you and I'm like "This guy is clearly balanced and well liked, what did I do??" > LOLOL <
I do plan on Thanking Mylochka (and a couple others in the 3D Trek community) in my final End Credits for both inspiration and idea sourcing that led me to optimized solutions (like Uhura's opacity mapped hair). However I generally re-make things I need with my own mesh, textures etc. if for no other reason than to try to up the quality of the end result a bit.
Also my original bridge (mesh) will be credited to ''B.J. West" (although I spent many weeks giving it Animated Textures and Soft Shadows, etc).
I consider myself first and foremost, an Animator and Visual FX Artist. Modelling is not one of my favorite things to be sure, I'd rather be trying to breathe life into something! Although I welcome you to check out the small update I posted to show new walk cycle work (I know,.. whew...!) and the new Sickbay Set Lab etc. (which I plan to donate to the Trek mesh community in due course):

(although I rendered the above before creating the new dynamically simulated Cloth Shirts I now have on the Characters.) In this clip (below) is the new Cloth and a funny little dialog interaction (I 'made') that the actors themselves would Never remember having! LOL

We see a lot coming up,
There is an inter-dimensional away mission at the end of this episode! Kirk goes a little insane due to a very unusual environmental property! (that's what the audio in the clip above is from, an extended sequence in which... oops... No spoilers! )

I'm doing my darndest but now that I'm backing up with animated scenes completed, but no machines 'just for rendering', it's frustratingly slow going... I'm considering a KickStart campaign, either for just this episode, or all 16 that I have planned (plus the 3-4 additional 'Alternate Universe/Reboot episodes I now have the source material for...)

Whatever You Tube is saying, this is one of the upcoming Fan Films (or series) I most hope succeed. What you have released is remarkable and I hope for more to come!

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Thank you! It is very inspiring to hear that. While i'm proud of what I have created, I am making a lot of good changes to the look to address obvious problems like the body volume issue and walking animation. (see the clips I pasted into message to Bill above).

I'm considering doing a KickStart campaign either to complete just this episode or for the entire 16 Episodes I have planned (plus 3-4 'Alternate Universe/'re-boot-Re-Boot' episodes I have the source material for).

My plan is to touch up part One (basically the first 15mins. of the first 45-minute episode) then use that to make the 'KickStart' happen. Any ideas or constructive comments you or the Trek BBS community have will be most welcome. Whether to attempt to fund just "Beyond Antares", then use that full episode, to fund the other 15(or as many as 19) after? Hard to decide..

At any rate, I plan to use whatever I can pull together:
to buy equipment, hire additional Animators and pop these episodes out as quickly and as high quality as possible.
>>> I would Love to up the quality exponentially and go Photo-realistic with sub-surface scattering of light and Renderman renders etc. If that ever becomes possible, that will become the plan! ;~)

Re: Robert Englan'ds STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE CGI with original cast voice

For those interested This is a link to the first 10 minutes of this project I have re-created as a True Stereoscopic SBS 3D HD clip. (especially if you have an EVO 3D phone or Nvidia 3D-Vision. Not as good with Red/Blue glasses)
With NO Depth of Field and slightly different 3D 'friendly' camera angles this is my experimental exploration of the possibility of making my project fully 3D or at least making a 3D 'version' of each episode, as most things seem come out in both formats these days. The separation varies a considerably as I was testing what works with what and why,,..
Enjoy!

Re: Robert Englan'ds STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE CGI with original cast voice

I haven't seen all of it yet but, based on the first few minutes I think you've done a great job.

I've wondered for a while if we would ever get to the point where we could take audio samples from things done years ago and create all new projects with it through CGI.

Naturally, these characters as you've created them aren't "lifelike" in that there's no mistaking that they're computer animation. Still, I think it's a great first step toward the future for something like that.

Re: Robert Englan'ds STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE CGI with original cast voice

This is really cool in many ways. I really liked the part where Kirk is filming his voiceover in the studio.

But has anyone else noticed that the story is not original at all? This is actually the mission "Voids" from Judgment Rites. There are pieces taken from other parts of JR and 25th Anniversary, as well as other places and episodes. Yet the vast majority is from Voids.

It's actually the same exact story as Voids. Just some additional dialogue was added.

I'm not trying to criticize. It's really good work. But it's not a new animated Star Trek story.

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Yes but the games 25th Anniversary/Judgement Rites are LONG out of print and even though they are on YouTube they are largely forgotten. This was the last time, after The Undiscovered Country, the ORIGINAL cast of the show recorded new stories set during their famous mission.

You can tell the age of the actors as they do sound older but that doesn't matter - but turning the game into these animation Robert is technically piecing together new episodes to watch rather than play. It is certainly more interesting to look at than the gameplay itself.

People will find Beyond Antares and be amazed. And there's 16 more to come - no it's not a full NBC season but we could end up with SEVENTEEN 45min CGI episodes with the original cast so it's darn close.